Photo
by aimoon
Summary: He would have paid for it, only he did not want witnesses. Too bad.
1. Chapter 1

AN - This started as a one shot and has since grown. If you want, you could read only the first chapter.

Disclaimer- Yeah, so, JK Rowling gave me the rights to Harry Potter, except not. Don't sue.

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The Creeveys were in business. Apparently, other students were very keen to buy some of the many pictures Colin had taken of Harry and crew. Well, mostly Harry. However, recently Dennis had had the bright idea to take pictures of all the boys that girls seemed to stare at a lot. These pictures sold very well, and the brothers now had a rather full range of Hogwarts boys pictures for sale.

The two had little table up in a drafty old tower with all of the pictures laid out every Saturday afternoon. Girls would giggle up to the tower in groups. The younger ones would all stand around pretending they didn't know why they were up there. _Oh me? No, I don't like him! Fine, I'll buy a picture just to shut you up. _Dennis really didn't understand all of the laughing, but for some reason Colin seemed very interested in whatever the girls thought was funny. Dennis also noticed his brother brushed his hair a lot more on Saturdays.

Hermione found herself being dragged up multiple flights of stairs to the above mentioned nonsense by a determined Ginny. Ginny wanted a picture of Harry and she wasn't going to get it alone. _I wonder if she'll expect me to buy one of Ron too? Ugh. _Not that it mattered, Hermione didn't have any money on her. Even if she did have money, she couldn't understand the need to buy a picture of Ron, when she could see him everyday anyway, but Ginny was _funny_ about these things. Especially things about Hermione and Ron. _Really, I think this whole Ron and me thing is just her excuse to get a sister. Now if there were just a way to make Ron a girl, Ginny would have a sister and I wouldn't have this mess. _

Ginny was already at the table perusing the many pictures of Harry. When Hermione approached the table she noticed there were even a few forgotten pictures of herself there. _Probably ones where I got in the way of the camera._ This idea was bolstered by the fact that she could see a few bushy haired miniatures of herself had fallen onto the floor. _I guess I'm not a heartthrob. _

A few minutes later, Hermione noticed there seemed less giggling and more the sound of little girls running away. The panicked look on Colin's face as he began shoveling pictures into a large knapsack was clue enough that Someone was coming that wouldn't be a second year school girl. Hermione started to run with the rest, but was knocked down by a wild-eyed fourth year in the mad dash to escape. Her head smacked the floor and the sudden pain was disorienting. She couldn't even see Ginny now and she could hear the footsteps of the Someone getting closer. _Think Hermione, you're a witch! Gods, I wish I were invisible. Oh, duh. _Hermione crawled to the wall nearby and cast a disillusionment charm on herself. All she had to do now was to stay very still and, hopefully, out of the Someone's way.

The Someone was a menacing Professor Snape. _Of course, who else would take enjoyment from scaring the piss out of crush-crazed little girls._ Although, he didn't seem interested in chasing the few girls that could still be seen fleeing down the stairs. The professor just stood at the top of the staircase watching their terror with obvious amusement. After the last one had left, he began casting _Reducto_ at the remaining pictures. As there were quite a few that Colin had not been able to grab, this took a while. Perhaps it would not have taken as long had Professor Snape not tossed the pictures individually up into the air for target practice first.

Hermione was starting to wonder if he was going to do this all day when she realized that he had stopped blasting and was now simply looking at one of the pictures he had found on the floor. As he bent over to look at the picture a lank of hair fell over his face. When he impatiently brushed it back, Hermione saw the softest expression she'd ever seen the on the Professor's usually harsh face. _Well whoever it is, they certainly have his attention._ In the brief instant that the picture was visible to her before he hid it in his voluminous robes, Hermione saw a flash of her own bushy, brown hair.

She couldn't have breathed if she'd wanted to. At this point, oxygen would only fuel her brain's ability to think about the absolute insanity of what she'd just seen. Long after Professor Snape had simply _Incendio_ed the rest of the pictures and left, Hermione was still sitting in the drafty old tower, still disillusioned.

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AN - Like I said, short. I'm trying to write longer bits, we'll see were it goes.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: This is a continuation of a story I wrote months ago that I intended to stand alone. Meh, this bit me so I ran with it.

AN2: Eck! Sorry if you got bunches of updates about this, I did something stupid, but I think it's all fixed now...

Disclaimer: Don't sue me, it's not worth it, I don't own anything.

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Hermione's new secret "hobby" required ample free time in the library. Fortunately, her spending copious amounts of time in the library was completely normal, so no one suspected that she wasn't off studying.

The corner of the library she had holed herself up into was well lit and poorly known. It was an octagonally shaped nook on the 2nd and a half floor of the library on the north side with room enough for perhaps two people. A large, octagonal window provided all the light she needed. The books and shelves below and around the window were very dusty and ignored. Hermione felt comfortable enough leaving supplies in the space behind books, sure that no one would notice. She couldn't take them back to the dormitories and risk questions. There could be no answer for what she was doing.

_What was she doing? _

_I'm drawing ... and talking to myself while sitting in this dusty, cramped corner on the floor. _

At least she was drawing decently well now. The first attempts had been really horrible. Naturally she had found some books on the subject. Learning some of the general principles for drawing eyes and noses and such had helped a little. However, she still could not draw on parchment the stark image that she saw nearly every time she closed her eyes.

_Lank hair stubbornly pushed back. Black cloth swallowing the half-knelt figure._

Hermoine leaned her head back against the stone wall, her hand with the charcoal drifted down to her side. She could draw his cloak and his hair and his mouth and all that. It was his eyes...

_Black eyes, soft, intense... _

Hermione couldn't get his eyes right despite many, many tries. His eyes had actually been the first thing she had tried to draw. Rolls of Charms notes had to be recopied to eradicate all traces of the sketched eyes that lined their edges. She had known it was becoming an obsession when she owl-ordered charcoal and drawing parchment.

She couldn't ask him why he had taken the photograph of her. Or why his face had been so different from anything she'd ever seen before from him. She couldn't ask him to look at her like he had her picture.

None of what had happened six weeks ago made any sense. So she obsessed. Snape didn't seem any different and he certainly had not changed in his treatment of her. Drawing was her only way of thinking it through.

Hermione opened her eyes and noticed that the library was getting darker and felt that it was probably time for dinner. She could finish this tomorrow. She carefully folded the parchment in wax paper and hid it behind a row of books with her pencil bag of charcoal. _Evaneseco _took care of her sooty hands.

Eyes followed her down the tight spiral staircase and out of the library. She had not been in her normal studying spot for some time now and he had decided to find out why.

There was still a piece of charcoal on the floor in the vacated nook. He picked it up gingerly and held it close for inspection. _What was she doing here with charcoal? _His eyes raked the shelves for some kind of clue and found it in the form of a corner of wax paper poking out behind a book on helping nauseated dragons.

Professor Snape discovered himself looking at an amateurish drawing of someone who looked remotely like himself kneeling on the ground in a drafty tower while holding a small square something. He knew what the something was.

_A photo. _

Snape was used to thinking quickly, but too many hurried thoughts ripped through his mind for him to cope. _Oh gods, what had she seen?_

The parchment fluttered to the floor. Snape's robes billowed in answer as he stormed from the library.

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AN: So more open-ended than the last chapter, which is terrible since I don't know if I'll write anymore...


	3. Chapter 3

AN: I felt so guilty about getting so many nice reviews that I sat and thought until I could write this instead of doing actual work. :)

_Disclaimer: I own Harry Potter, and I keep him locked up for devious purposes. Except not at all._

* * *

She was slow to pack up her things. Quills were painstakingly stacked together and placed inside a bag with an image of an angry-looking brown something and white letters that said 'DOMO'. Snape didn't understand what that was supposed to be, nor did he understand what was taking her so long.

Resolutely zipping up her bag, pulling her sweater down her waist and pushing her hair back: she was going to _talk _to him. Snape wondered why he was still there. He could simply turn around and disappear into his office right now and skip whatever she was planning.

He did not move.

He stood his ground as she made her way, with arms folded across her chest, to stand a foot in front of him. His glare wasn't working to get rid of her, but at least she was looking less sure of herself.

"Class is over, Miss Granger. Whatever prattling you had wished to inflict upon me can wait the entirely too brief expanse of time until the next class affords you the chance to be insufferable."

Without replying she handed him a small, folded piece of dark parchment. He removed it from her grasp while being careful to not touch her. Hermione waited for him to unfold and read it, searching his face for even the hint of an emotion.

"I suppose it was foolish of me to expect you to be more sensible than this letter implies. You may leave now. "

His words were clear and cutting and whatever she was looking for in his countenance wasn't there. She made as if to take the note back from him, but her sudden movement towards him brought a snarl to his face and she snapped her hand back in surprise.

"Get out, Miss Granger."

When her mouth popped open in reactionary protest, he loomed over her and began not-so-subtly backing her towards the door. She was sure that she was shrinking under his truly bat-like silhouette as Snape's arm reached over her shoulder and planted his hand on the door now behind her. Hermione was trapped between the heavy, black, oak and a glowering Professor Snape. Despite herself, Hermione felt her face flush and her heart hammer ungracefully and loudly in her chest.

More swiftly than her distracted brain could notice, Snape pushed on the door while his other hand snaked up and unlatched the door lock. This left Hermione falling flatly on her arse into the hall, with spilled book bag contents becoming haphazard satellites around her. Her utterly shocked face only managed to catch quick sight of a nasty smile half-hidden by dark hair before the door was slammed into her feet.

The tears welled before she could stop them.

* * *

Severus Snape didn't lock or ward his top dresser drawer. He didn't have to since there appeared to be nothing in it. In fact, the drawer contained two things: a bottle of whiskey and a small photograph. Since obtaining the latter, Snape had found that whenever he needed the one, he was likely to need the other.

The whiskey was a cheap, horrid, muggle concoction that his father had drank. This reminder to himself of his father's weakness was the only way he knew of to prevent his following down the same detestable road of alcoholism. His own disgust with himself at seeing the bottle in the morning was usually sufficient to keep him from opening it again for some time.

Four glasses in, the words of _her_ letter were just another hazy bit of evil the world had forced upon him. Unlike Harry Potter, he could burn this particular bit of evil right out of existence. He had even made a special fire in the dusty, unused fireplace in his office just for the occasion.

Snape didn't worry about remembering what the letter said. Honestly, he was hoping the whiskey would make him forget. Amongst the curling bits of parchment one could still clearly read the following:

_…f. Snape_

_ … ranger has been accepted into a master level potion..._

_ … Univer... …ng in the spring semester. _

_ ... is she w ... no longer be attending your potions … _

_ … No further action is required from y..._

_ … Prof. McGo..._

Throwing some whiskey into the fire took care of the last of the letter. But drunkenly staring into serious, boringly-brown eyes from a much-held tiny photo made it clear there was no way to take care of the real problem.

_She_ was leaving _his_ classes for good.

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AN: I think I have an idea for more, but I have to write this funding proposal thing first so it will be a longer wait. Thanks again for all of the reviews.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Thanks again to all of the reviewers, I'm sorry this chapter took so long. Hope you like it.

_Disclaimer: You did see the __fan part of fanfiction, right? Clearly, I don't own anything._

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_Two days_.

Just 48 hours, just … and Hermione's brain paused with the difficulty of multiplying 48 and 60 in her head.. 2 thousand... 8 hundred and 80 minutes. Well give or take a few minutes, it wasn't a real exact count down.

Hermione had found something new to obsess about. Clearly someone had found out about her drawing and she'd been forced to send everything to the Room of Requirement after hyperventilating for a few minutes while thinking of awkward and embarrassing explanations to Ginny or worse, Ron. The next few weeks had been spent on the nervous edge of paranoia, but no one seemed ready to confront her about drawings of Professor Snape.

_Why had she been so stupid to just leave the drawings there without even a quick charm to disillusion them? _

It didn't matter now. No one seemed to know about the drawings' relation to her. In fact, she had gone to great lengths to insure that no one would ever entertain any idea of any kind of relations between anything to do with her and Professor Snape, at all. All the way to a tiny magical university in London she traveled twice a week in the evenings to attended potions lectures and every other Saturdays for the lab. She came to meals late or not at all and made sure that she was never roaming the halls at night, or by the lake or near the dungeons. When Ron or Harry started on their whining about Snape, Hermione remembered something she had to do in another room where she knew she couldn't hear them.

None of this stopped her from lying awake and thinking. Or sitting in class and thinking or pretending to be studying in the common room but really thinking of Severus Snape. Hermione had once thought that she'd understood Snape as a bitter and sadistic man trying to ignore the fact that he happened to be on the good side. He clearly thought of her as a nuisance. However, she had seen him take a photo of her, and although the reason for this might have been an obvious one had it been anyone else, Hermione had great difficulty in accepting it even as a theory when it came to _him_. Severus Snape could not have _feelings_ for her. He'd even made it clear to her when she'd left his class for the last time. _Why did he take her picture?_ Though she could not tell you why, Hermione desperately needed an explanation.

So, Hermione was going to break into his private quarters this coming Saturday.

Snape was chaperoning the Hogsmeade visit and enough people thought that Hermione would be attending lab. Harry also thought he knew where his invisibility cloak was.

Which is why by mid-morning on Saturday no one was looking for Hermione or seeing her as she made her careful way to the kitchens.

Dorla had been at Hogwarts since her masters had realized that the elf was blind enough that she couldn't distinguish her own fingers anymore. Dumbledore had happily taken her in and had even given her the wide, thick glasses that made her eyes look like freakishly large versions of those plastic googley craft eyes. She had almost no peripheral vision. This is why poor Dorla never had a chance as Hermione swooped down on her and brought a itchy, red sock down on Dorla's head. Before she could stop it, Dorla was freed. The wailing was deafening.

With some difficulty, Hermione was able to shove the other sock into Dorla's mouth and get the sobbing elf to face her. The look she received from Dorla was a bit frightening actually.

"I'll take back the clothes, but you have to do something for me first. I'm sorry, it's the only way I could think of to do this."

When the elf nodded, fat tears rolling down fatter cheeks, Hermione felt a twinge of guilt. But S.P.E.W. Hermione rose her indignant head and pointed out that all she was doing was _freeing_ the elf, Dorla shouldn't be this upset.

"Here, I brought you these, you can eat them once we've finished." Hermione handed the elf a small bag of muggle hard pretzels. During her campaign to free the elves she'd tried to bribe them into freedom and had found they rather liked salty foods. Dorla carefully took the peace offering, wiped her eyes and looked up expectantly at Hermione.

"I need you to open a door for me, I'll have to carry you under the cloak."

As soon as Dorla had opened the picture to Snape's quarters (Some wizard Hermione had never heard of, not even in _Hogwarts, A History_, but who had ear hair so long it was joining his beard.) Hermione pulled the cap off of the grateful elf and it disappeared.

She was alone.

In _his _quarters.

A mad, giggling thought crept into her mind, _somewhere in here Snape keeps his underwear._ The more sensible parts of her mind quashed this and she set to work methodically searching his room.

It didn't take long, there wasn't much there. What was there revealed almost nothing about the person living in it. Hermione had stayed in hospital rooms with more personality. There were socks and (giggle) underwear in the bottom dresser drawer. The wardrobe held black clothes and black shoes. The tiny bathroom had generic toothpaste and a plain bar of soap. No pictures, no rugs, no books. Even the fireplace looked rarely used.

A small desk was the last hope. There was nothing on it but blank parchment and an inkwell with a few cheap quills in it. Hermione expected the one drawer to be locked, but it wasn't. Unfortunately, nothing was in it. With some frustration she slammed the drawer back into the desk. She'd managed to break into Snape's room for nothing.

_Wait. Had she heard something?_

Hermione pulled the drawer out and quickly slammed it back in again. A smile cracked onto her face as she recognized the sound of something shuffling in the drawer. Opening it once again, she reached her hand into nothing and pulled out something.

They were letters.

There were at least a dozen. They were all addressed to her.

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AN: Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Thank you again to every reviewer. I appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you think. Even if you don't review, thanks for reading, really.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is still not mine, just like in every other chapter before.

* * *

It was a week before Snape found that the letters were missing. In a blind panic he had checked his top dresser drawer and the false stone in the wall of his bathroom and then the desk again. It was no use, the letters were gone. He hadn't misplaced them, someone had gotten into his rooms and taken his letters.

Fury clashed with terror for dominance. Whoever had possession of those letters had possession of him, if they weren't stupid enough to not share them outright. It had been very stupid of him to keep them at all, they should have been destroyed. In any case, Snape was in deep unless he could get those letters back quietly and quickly. Fortunately, he knew just the place to go to get anything in the castle he required.

The dark storm cloud of Severus Snape rolled past flocks of instantly sheepish students. The smartest ones hid themselves in classrooms before they could give themselves the chance to earn a lifetime supply of free trips to the forbidden forest with Filch. Snape's seething hatred expanded to quickly clear the entire hall near the Room of Requirement. It was not difficult to open the room. Pacing was coming very naturally right now and he very much needed those letters.

What he did not need was for Hermione to be in the room holding those letters.

She had meant to hide the letters with her drawings. She was doing so when the room had changed from a maze of forgotten leftover things to just her, the letters and her drawings. That was when Snape had walked in. It didn't take him long to recover from his surprise.

"Give those to me._ Now_."

The words were barely more coherent than a growl. His face was contorted and blotchy and if Hermione had thought she'd seen him angry before, she now knew that he'd been only mildly displeased. It should have scared her into obeying immediately.

However, she had read the letters, his letters to _her_, and Hermione Granger could read in between the lines.

"No?" She didn't meant to sound unsure, but at least she'd gotten the word out of her mouth without it becoming a timid 'eep!' like a mouse caught in a cat's paws.

"_Accio letters!_"

In Snape's mind the previous spell had retrieved him the loathsome letters and had then left him free to scare the unholy Gryffindor out of her for breaking into his rooms and stealing from him.

In reality, Hermione held onto the letters quite a bit more tightly than Snape had expected. The result was that she made a crash landing into the professor and the letters made a short-lived blizzard around them.

It was like pieces of his heart had cut themselves out and made an arrangement of embarrassment and shame around them_. _They could both see his words to her lying on the ground, open and exposed.

_Dear Minerva's Golden Child, _

_You're not as bloody clever as everyone seems to think you are. If you were, you would have found a way to not be so damned irritating to me. Believe me, no one likes a student who is not smart enough to know when to stop trying too hard. Even toads can memorize, please start to actually use that head I know you've got hiding under that hideous hair of yours. It will make my life less tiresome certainly._

_-Prof. S._

_Dear Insufferable Know-it-all,_

_No, I do not have extra credit or extra assignments. Stop asking. In fact, quit forcing me to have to think about you at all. Go away._

_-Professor S.S._

_Dear Disagreeable Gryffindor, _

_I propose an agreement. You allow Neville to explode with one of his potions and I give you an exceeds expectations. It should be understood that the blast would have to take Potter out too for an outstanding. _

_-Severus_

_P.S.-Only because you are such a literal person should I point out that I am not serious. I would give you an outstanding just for Neville._

_Dear Bloody Annoying Chit,_

_Don't you ever put your silly hand down? Doesn't the blood rush out? _

_-S. Snape _

_Dear Bushy Mop of Brown Hair,_

_Today you failed, again, to tie your hair back properly in class. Wisps of your unruly hair were everywhere. If you can not correct this then I will not be able to stop myself from hexing your wild hair off. I would possibly be doing you a favor and perhaps no longer feel the urge to kiss you senseless, which would be a favor to me._

_-Severus Snape_

_Dear Book-worm, _

_You would kindly mind your manners at dinner and pull your nose out of the bloody book. It's blocking my view of your odd facial scrunching._

_-S. Snape_

_Dear Hermione Granger,_

_You are the most bothersome person alive. Other than Potter. Lily would have liked you._

_-Severus_

_Hermione, _

_I can only imagine that Mr. Creevy managed to photograph you just as a bug flew into your nose. There is no other reasonable explanation for the atrociously un-refined look on your face. Remind me to thank him later._

_-Severus_

_H,_

_Oh Gods, how could you have seen me? You have to stop whatever it is you think you're doing or going to do. You really do not know who you're dealing with._

_-S_

_H,_

_If you tell Potter or Weasley about this incident I will make you regret ever coming to Hogwarts. You can not prove anything and no one would listen anyway. _

_-S_

_Hermione,_

_You must quit looking at me. I have no explanation. You weren't supposed to know. No one was. Can't you just leave me alone and for once let something go?_

_-Severus_

_H,_

_You're an oblivious idiot, no one goes to wizarding university because everyone expects you to learn everything in secondary school. You can't leave my potions class without looking odd. Besides I know your new professor and she's a blubbering moron._

_Just don't leave._

_-S_

_Ms. Granger,_

_You've done well to avoid me completely. I'm certain you're enjoying the freedom this provides you. I can only imagine you are the envy of Potter and Mr. Weasley. _

_For my part I can only say that I am relieved that you have removed one more nuisance from my daily life. It has been most refreshing to be absent your nitpicking and needling of every small detail. _

_-S. Snape. _

_Ms. Granger,_

_I do not miss you. I will not miss you when you go back to your _muggle_ family. I wish you were gone now._

_-S. Snape_

Snape was already crumpling the letters into his white-knuckled fists.

"No, wait. We have to talk about this. I -"

"This? There is no _this." _

"But I read those letters! You can't expect me to just drop this and pretend I didn't see anything."

At this his upper lip turned up in an ugly snarl. He was already drawing his wand.

"Nothing a quick _Obliviate_ can't fix."

His wand moved quickly to point at her head and she violently flinched backwards, real terror twisting across her face. A short, mirthless laugh broke from him at her obvious fear.

"You wanted to talk? Let's talk. I do not need saving, Ms. Granger. You are not the shining light to brighten my dark days. These letters were a mistake. Do not let yourself pretend that I _love _you and that all it takes is a few moments with you to turn me into a brave _hero_ like one of your eager friends." He loomed over her, his shoulders tensely squared and his pale face taught with rage. He said the word hero like it was biting his tongue on the way out.

"I_ am _dangerous, Ms. Granger. Consider that you stole these letters from me after breaking into my private quarters. This is not a matter of taking off house points or few detentions. Take my written advice to you and actually use that allegedly bright brain of yours to figure out just how frightened you should be of me right now. "

Hermione did take a moment to consider. Then she slapped him.

She did it because she thought he deserved it, because he had started this and was blaming it on her and because a part of her did want to save him, to see him as a hero, to have him love her even if he was well... him.

"You are not going to coerce me with fear about this, okay? You do remember that I hexed you unconscious in my third-year, right? " Her voice was shaky, but not as now shaky as her resolve to get to the bottom of whatever this was he doing. _What was _she_ doing exactly? What could she possibly gain from continuing to talk to him? _

Snape had said nothing. He hadn't even moved when she'd slapped him and now his eyes were pulsing hate and fury with an almost palpable intensity. Obviously, none of this was going well.

"What did you want from all this," Hermione gestured hopelessly about her where most of the letters still lay, "all this letter writing and photo taking?"

Still nothing. If eyes were the window to the soul, then Snape's soul was clearly expecting an emotional hurricane and had boarded everything up.

She would probably be in a lot of trouble later, but there was nothing left to do about it now. Hermione bent down to collect her favorite letter, the one about her reading books at meals, to take it and leave him until he stopped acting like an idiot. However, when she touched it, it burst into flames, as did all the other letters and her drawings of him. Her fingers lit up with pain and before she could move to save any of them they were nothing but disappearing bits of ash.

When she looked up from the floor she realized that Snape had disappeared too. Hermione was left alone in the Room of Requirement sucking at her burnt finger and feeling stupid, embarrassed and in no mood to see Severus Snape any time soon.

That night, a surprisingly sober Severus Snape tried multiple times to burn or rip, or grind into invisible bits the tiny photo he had of Hermione. Every time he tried to destroy the thing he found he couldn't bring himself to do it. Her tiny face would stare at him and ask, _what did you want from all this? _

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AN: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Next update may take a little longer than this one did, sorry ahead of time.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: I suck for not producing this sooner. Gomen. Hope you like.

* * *

She would graduate in a month.

He knew what would happen next. When he'd found himself in this same situation with Lily he'd lived with the overwhelming weight of _hope _that he'd one day be forgiven, that there would be another chance. There was no hope this time, now there was only the inevitability her leaving for good, marrying some lack-luster idiot and having his children. At least the idiot this time wasn't a Potter, even if he was a run-of-the-mill Gryffindor lackey.

Sharp eyes and ears were very helpful for pathetically spying on the above mentioned lackey fumble over himself to let Hermione win their game of chess. The whole scene was quite _special _really, Weasley's tattered cloak so heroically thrown on the ground to protect Hermione from the dangers of _grass_, his cheerful voice congratulating her on her _excellent_ moves and how positively miserable he was to be losing so soundly to her _absolute _genius. Ever so often the lout would even let his hand rest ever so gently on hers. Snape could see her blush from here.

Fine. She obviously had what she wanted now.

After a month or so of avoiding him because of that horrific affair in the Room of Requirement, she had had the gall to visit him in his office and bring the whole embarrassing business up again by apologizing .

"_I shouldn't have stolen your letters." Her eyes were on the ground, she hadn't even looked at him when he'd opened the door. "I'm so terribly sorry that I violated your privacy like that, I ... just," her eyes darted about to glance at everything but him. "I just wanted to understand you, and what was going on, I needed to understand."_

"_What are you prattling about, Ms. Granger?" he drawled, looking down at her with a look of pure, cold disdain and boredom. He'd practiced this look. The slight snarl, the narrowed eyes, he could freeze the air with this look. _

"_I'm apologizing for sneaking into your room to take the letters you wrote to me. It was wrong and I'm asking for your forgiveness." Her voice held only the tiniest hint of pleading, but she still didn't look him in the eye. _

"_Breaking into a professor's room is grounds for expulsion, Ms. Granger. Perhaps, you'd like to reconsider this extraordinary fabrication of yours before sharing it with anyone else? Particularly when this fantasy of yours includes impugning my character." _

_Hermione's wide eyes flashed to his. Stupid, for her hurt and worry to be so obvious, anyone could take advantage of them. _

"_Get out, you stupid, silly girl and don't bother me with this again."_

_Blotchy red spots appeared on her cheeks as she turned in silence to leave, somehow even her hair managed to look more flustered. _

She'd left quickly and from that moment had stopped trying to avoid him except to stay out of his class. However, she also stopped acknowledging his presence at all.

Now she was with that simpering moron, having some sort of chess picnic or other such nonsense. Well, he didn't have to let that continue.

"Mr. Weasley, " Snape was pleased to see the languid frame twitch in surprise, "Fifteen points for taking school property out of the castle. Ten more points if you do not return the chess set _immediately_." Ron's protest lived a hopeful, but incredibly tiny expanse of time before dying on his lips at the sight of Snape's dark scowl.

When Hermione made it obvious she intended to stay behind Snape growled, "Yes, Ms. Granger?" without taking his glare off of the retreating Ron.

"We're still on school grounds. There's no reason to not let us play with the chess set here."

"If you don't like the rules then buy your own damn chess set." He replied while still avoiding her eyes.

"You're pathetic."

He didn't let his surprise or hurt show, he wouldn't let her take advantage of his emotions.

"Twenty points, for insulting a professor, Ms. Granger." He said softly, finally looking up at her. Snape saw what he had expected to, arms folded over her chest, jaw set, narrowed eyes. She was hardened now and nothing he did was going to effect her anymore. She was done. Moving On. At least he'd known what to expect this time around. She began to storm off.

It would be pointless try to stop her as she walked up the hill to go back into the castle.

"Wait."

She stopped, but she didn't turn around. Snape felt somewhere near his heart jolt painfully. He didn't know what he was doing, and this could all go so much worse if he didn't stop himself now.

"I don't love you." was all he could think of to say. Hearing this she started back up the hill, but he ran to step in front of her.

"I don't love you, but I..." He stared at her helplessly without any response. She was too close and he shivered involuntarily as a wisp of her hair blew with the light wind across his cheek. "I _know_ you."

"Oh that's fantastic!" she burst out, her hands flying up. "You _know _me, just great. How is this supposed to work? I wait years for you to open up, to let me know _you_? And in the mean time I just deal with your insults and insecurity? Then what? I wait even more for you to act on this?"

" This? There hasn't been any _this _and you never gave any indication that you wanted things to be any different."

" '_What did you want with all this?' " _Snape mocked in a high-pitched tone. "As if you couldn't figure out what I wanted when it should have been obvious. I'm the insecure one? Between the two of us, you've had the definite advantage in knowing what the other wanted. Instead of trying to defend myself from your constant questioning, I should have asked, 'what did you _want_ with all your questioning?' "

In his tirade he had moved to loom over her. The wind occasionally blew his cloak to wrap momentarily around her, giving him the briefest feeling of her belonging to him. However, she was now too close and the determined look in her eyes gave him a disconcerting feeling in his chest.

"I wanted you," she whispered, " as if you couldn't have figured that out." And then she stood on tip-toe, her hand moved involuntarily to his collar-bone to steady herself as she leaned towards him. He could feel her soft fingertips burning their presence onto the skin of his neck. Hermione Granger was going to kiss him.

"Don't." The word was choked out, forced. "You really don't understand with whom you're involving yourself. I was not lying when I said I wasn't a hero. I really _am _a difficult man."

"No shit." She grinned. She was enjoying the fact that even though he hadn't let her kiss him, she was still touching him and he had moved his arm to almost enclose her in his cloak. His look said he wasn't joking though.

"I'm serious, don't believe you can 'save me' with some misguided belief in the redeeming power of your affection. I'm unlikely to change."

"That's a lie, you're the most changeable person I know. And besides, I don't want you to change who you really are, I just want you to be more honest about it, at least with me if not everyone. That's not being 'saved'."

This was met with only a cautious raise of an eyebrow.

"Don't say I'm 'saving' you then. You can save me instead. Save me from accepting the mediocre in life because it would be easy and comfortable." She moved further into his arms. "You can't pretend you wouldn't make life a more interesting challenge."

"Well, at least I won't let you just win at chess." His tiny smirk was interrupted by her succeeding this time in actually kissing him. It was quick, and just a little awkward, but it held something Severus Snape had thought he'd lost forever: hope.

* * *

AN: And that's pretty much it. I have an idea for an epilogue but it'll be a while before I have a chance to write it. I should mention that I wanted to end the story before Snape says, "wait", but I couldn't think how'd they'd ever come back from that and I didn't want him to end things like that. So perhaps some OOC, meh. Thanks for reading!


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